Robert Michael Ballantyne - Rivers of Ice

“But I don’t gamble by means of dice,” interrupted Lewis, “I play, and bet, on billiards, which is a game of skill, requiring much practice, judgment, and thought.”

“That makes no odds, my lad,” continued the Captain. “There is no connection whatever between the rolling of a ball and the taking away of a man’s money, any more than there is between the turning of a dice and the taking of a man’s money. Both are dishonourable subterfuges. They are mere blinds put up to cover the great and mean fact, which is, that I want to get possession of my neighbour’s cash.”

“But, Captain,” retorted Lewis, with a smile—for he had now entered into the spirit of the argument—“you ignore the fact that while I try to win from my friend, I am quite willing that my friend should try to win from me.”

“Ignore it? no!” cried Captain Wopper. “Putt it in this way. Isn’t it wrong for me to have a longing desire and itching fingers to lay hold of your cash?”

“Well, put in that simple form,” said Lewis, with a laugh, “it certainly is.”

“And isn’t it equally wrong for you to have a hungering and thirsting after my cash?”

“Of course that follows,” assented Lewis.

“Well, then,” pursued the Captain, “can any agreement between you and me, as to the guessing of black or white or the turning of dice or anything else, make a right out of two wrongs?”

“Still,” said Lewis, a little puzzled, “there is fallacy somewhere in your argument. I cannot see that gambling is wrong.”

“Mark me, my lad,” returned the Captain, impressively, “it is no sufficient reason for the doing of a thing that you cannot see it to be wrong. You are not entitled to do anything unless you see it to be right. But there are other questions connected with gambling which renders it doubly mean—the question, for instance, whether a man is entitled to risk the loss of money which he calls his own, but which belongs to his wife and children as much as to himself. The mean positions, too, in which a gambler places himself, are numerous. One of these is, when a rich man wins the hard-earned and much-needed gains of a poor one.”

“But one is not supposed to know anything about the affairs of those from whom one wins,” objected Lewis.

“All the more reason,” replied Captain Wopper, “why a man should never gamble, lest, unwittingly, he should become the cause of great suffering—it might be, of death.”

Still Lewis “could not see” the wrong of gambling, and the discussion was cut short by the sudden stopping of the cab at a door in the Strand, over which hung a lamp, on which the Captain observed the word “Billiards.”

“Well, ta-ta, old fellow,” said Lewis, gaily, as he parted from his new friend, “we’ll finish the argument another day. Meanwhile, don’t forget the hour—eight, sharp.”

When Captain Wopper parted from his young friend, he proceeded along the Strand in an unusually grave mood, shaking his head to such a degree, as he reflected on the precocious wickedness of the rising generation, that a very ragged and pert specimen of that generation, observing his condition, gravely informed him that there was an hospital for incurables in London, which took in patients with palsy and St. Wituses’ dance werry cheap.

This recalled him from the depths of sorrowful meditation, and induced him to hail a cab, in which he drove to the docks, claimed his chest—a solid, seamanlike structure, reminding one of the wooden walls of Old England—and returned with it to the head of the lane leading to Grubb’s Court. Dismissing the cab, he looked round for a porter, but as no porter appeared, the Captain, having been accustomed through life to help himself, and being, as we have said, remarkably strong, shouldered the nautical chest, and bore it to the top of Mrs Roby’s staircase.

Here he encountered, and almost tumbled over, Gillie White, who saluted him with—

“Hallo! ship aho–o–oy! starboard hard! breakers ahead! Why, Capp’n, you’ve all but run into me!”

“Why don’t you show a light then,” retorted the Captain, “or blow your steam-whistle, in such a dark hole? What’s that you’ve got in your arms?”

“The baby,” replied Gillie.

“What baby?” demanded the Captain.

“ Our baby, of course,” returned the imp, in a tone that implied the non-existence of any other baby worth mentioning. “I brought it up to show it to the sick ’ooman next door but one to Mrs Roby’s cabin. She’s very sick, she is, an’ took a great longing to see our baby, cos she thinks it’s like what her son was w’en he was a baby. If he ever was, he don’t look much like one now, for he’s six-feet nothin’ in his socks, an’ drinks like a fish, if he don’t do nothin’ wuss. Good-night Capp’n. Baby’ll ketch cold if I keep on jawin’ here. Mind your weather eye, and port your helm when you reach the landin’. If you’ll take the advice of a young salt, you’ll clew up your mainsail an’ dowse some of your top-hamper—ah! I thought so!”

This last remark, delivered with a broad grin of delight, had reference to the fact that the Captain had run the corner of his chest against the low roof of the passage with a degree of violence that shook the whole tenement.

Holding his breath in hopeful anticipation, and reckless of the baby’s “ketching cold,” the small boy listened for more. Nor was he disappointed. In his progress along the passage Captain Wopper, despite careful steering, ran violently foul of several angles and beams, each of which mishaps sent a quiver through the old house, and a thrill to the heart of Gillie White. In his earnest desire to steer clear of the sick woman’s door, the luckless Captain came into collision with the opposite wall, and anxiety on this point causing him to forget the step on which he had “struck” once before, he struck it again, and was precipitated, chest and all, against Mrs Roby’s door, which, fortunately for itself, burst open, and let the avalanche of chest and man descend upon Mrs Roby’s floor.

Knowing that the climax was now reached, the imp descended the stair filled with a sort of serene ecstasy, while Captain Wopper gathered himself up and sat down on his nautical portmanteau.

“I tell ’ee what it is, old ’ooman,” said he, stroking his beard, “the channel into this port is about the wust I ever had the ill-luck to navigate. I hope I didn’t frighten ’ee?”

“Oh, dear no!” replied Mrs Roby, with a smile.

To say truth, the old woman seemed less alarmed than might have been expected. Probably the noise of the Captain’s approach, and previous experience, had prepared her for some startling visitation, for she was quite calm, and a humorous twinkle in her eyes seemed to indicate the presence of a spirit somewhat resembling that which actuated Gillie White.

“Well, that’s all right,” said the Captain, rising and pushing up the trap-door that led to his private berth in the new lodging; “and now, old lady, havin’ come to an anchor, I must get this chest sent aloft as fast as I can, seein’ that I’ve to clean myself an’ rig out for a dinner at eight o’clock at the west end.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs Roby, in surprise, “you must have got among people of quality.”

“It won’t be easy to hoist it up,” said the Captain, ignoring the remark, and eyeing the chest and trap-door in the roof alternately.

Just then a heavy step was heard in the passage; and a young man of large and powerful frame, with a gentle as well as gentlemanly demeanour, appeared at the door.